Perišić Robert: Područje bez signala

Robert Perišić: Area without a signal

Two characters arrive in the remote and devastated town of N., and there is hope - it is the entrance to the Area without a signal, in which, as in Perišić's previous novel, Our Man on the Ground, the local and the global are combined in a story that will make you laugh and shake you at the same time.

From workers to the financial elite, from waitresses to managers, from ours to Americans... - the novel's protagonists from the outside from distant worlds enter into relationships that change them and drive them into the unknown, fighting for survival and loving, doing a lot of things they didn't plan.

Many readers will recognize themselves in the liveliness of relationships that slide between the spoken and the unspoken, and will approach characters they may bypass in reality. Connecting the present and the past and events in an unusually wide area, from Siberia to the Maghreb, from the Dinarides to London, this story engages both intellectually and emotionally - with constant anticipation: what will happen next?

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Robert Perišić (Split, 1969) is the author of seven books, translated in numerous European countries and the USA, awarded in Croatia and abroad. He graduated in Croatian language and literature at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb. His novel Our man in the field received a great response in the USA and was included in the lists of translations and books of the year 2013 in America. He lives in Zagreb as an independent author.

They said about Perišić's previous novel:

Robert Perišić writes cleverly and uses irony brilliantly, showering us with images that speak of post-war Croatia, not only as a location where one survives, but as a place that means something. – Jonathan Franzen

Remarkable novels are more than the story told. They cross many constellations, discussing family, love, art, politics and money. It's amazing how Perišić's Our Man on the field captures everything mentioned, while being insanely funny at the same time. – Laura Farmer, The Eastern Iowa Gazette

Robert Perišić was born in Split in 1969; lives in Zagreb. After books of short stories ("Možeš plinuti onoga tko bude zapata za nas", 1999; "Horror and great costs", 2002) which had a significant resonance, and even more so after two novels with a strong domestic and international reception ("Our man on the ground", 2007; "Dručje bez signala", 2015), Perišić made a literary name primarily as a prose writer. The non-standard book "Introduction to Funny Dance" (2011) fits into the prose series. He is the author, among other things, of the staged drama ("Culture in the suburbs", 2000) and the script for the feature film "Sto minuta Slave" (2004).

He has been awarded in Croatia and abroad, his books have been translated into more than ten languages, with a special critical response in the USA.